90 – Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn narrated to me; Ḥassān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ruwayshid ibn al-Muṣabbiḥ al-Ṭāʾī narrated to us, from his father, who said: “There was in our clan a man who had reached an advanced age. He served as the clan’s herald of death, forever bringing a traveller’s family the news that he had died on the road. When one of his brothers fell ill and death drew near, the old man came in to him and said, ‘Brother, I can see what you are facing; give me some counsel.’ The dying man replied, ‘What counsel could I give you?’ Then he recited:
[al-Baḥr al-Wāfir]
It is as though, O child of both my father and my mother,
That death—however long your life may last—has already come to you.
You announce the dead while you still live,
Yet when you die, a living man will announce your passing.
So long as forenoon and afternoon keep alternating without pause,
Death drives them on until it finally overtakes the two of you.”